Jim Fagan
Controversy is nothing new at the Olympic Games – witness the world-wide protests about safety in women’s boxing (is she or he a man?) now in Paris.
Way back in 1908 at the Games in London bickering between British officials and American athletes led to the International Olympic Committee establishing standard rules for sports which have continued to this day.
Olympic authority, Dr Ian Jobling, of Sunshine Beach, will discuss this at Noosa Library next Friday when he speaks on the topic The early Modern Olympic Movement, with special emphasis on the 1908 Games. He will also discuss why it was in 1896 that the Olympic Games of the Ancient Greek world were “revived. Why not 1856, or 1906 or some other year?”
Ian who was founding director University of Queensland’s Centre of Olympic Studies believes there were several factors. They include technological developments, politics, education, mid-19th century archaeological findings in Greece, and the “ownership” of organised sport.
“All of these affected and influenced a young French aristocrat, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, who felt the need to hold an International Athletic Congress at France’s oldest university – the Sorbonne – in Paris in 1894,” he says.
In an illustrated talk, he will relate and discuss issues pertaining to the early Olympiads – the success of Athens 1896, and the problems of the 1900 and 1904 Olympics held in conjunction with World Fairs in Paris and St Louis.
“When Rome reneged in hosting the IV Olympiad in 1908 due to costs associated with the eruption of Mt Vesuvius, it was fortuitous that the IOC accepted the offer by the British for London to become the host city.”
Ian will conclude his talk with an explanation about what happened at the 1908 London Olympics, especially between athletes, teams and officials from Great Britain and the USA.
The Modern Olympic movement, Dr Ian Jobling, Friday August 16, 10.30am-12pm, at Noosaville Library, 7 Wallace Drive, Noosaville. Bookings required. Visit libraryevents.noosa.qld.gov.au/
